A man accused of murder warned a witness he would kill him if he spoke to anyone about what he had seen, a jury was told yesterday.
The man, described by the defence as a key witness, repeated his allegation that the nephew of a Connemara man had killed him in his cottage while he was present. He alleged the nephew punched him when he tried to intervene and followed him from the house, saying that if he caught him, he would kill him. He also alleged that the defendant threatened him again at the dead man's funeral.
Mr Patrick Joseph McGreene (29), of Corrib Park and St Mary's Road, Galway, has denied the murder of his uncle, Mr Tom Clisham (53), between November 24th, 1997, and December 4th, 1997, at Inverin. He has also pleaded not guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to his uncle.
On the fifth day of the trial in the Central Criminal Court, Mr Michael Folan told Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting, that the man and his uncle had grabbed each other after arguing about the house and land on November 24th. Mr McGreene hit his uncle against the table, causing two whiskey bottles to break, the witness said. Mr McGreene then took one broken bottle and "stabbed Tom up the throat". After the defendant "prodded" him four times in the throat, Tom fell to the floor, Mr Folan said. He alleged Mr McGreene then went to the other side of Mr Clisham and took off his (McGreene's) trousers and underpants.
"When I saw McGreene do that I went out the door," he said. He felt the defendant coming behind him. He knelt behind a wall. "He was saying if he caught me he'd kill me." The witness also alleged that when Mr Clisham was lying on the floor, the defendant had "put a cloth around the hands".
He left the cottage at around 4 a.m. on November 25th and went home to bed. The next day, and for a week afterwards, he was drinking, he said.
On the day Mr Clisham was buried, Mr Folan said, outside the church Mr McGreene "came behind me and he told me if I told anyone he'd kill me".
Cross-examining, Mr John Rogers SC, defending, put it to Mr Folan that he had told gardai that that had occurred the day the body was taken to the church, not the day he was buried. Mr Rogers suggested he could not remember which because it had not happened. The witness was lying, he said. "I am saying the whole truth," Mr Folan said.
Mr Folan said he had not been drinking in a pub in Eyre Square on December 4th, 1997, as counsel claimed. Mr Rogers said he was not telling the truth.
He denied going to the house of his first cousin and Mr Clisham's sister, Ms Mary Sherry, twice the following Saturday.
Counsel put it to him that Ms Sherry had said the witness had told her he knew who did it "and there were three of them in it". Mr Folan denied saying this and said he was not in Ms Sherry's house that day. Mr Rogers put it to him that he had said there were "two from Galway and one with plenty of Irish". "She was telling lies if she said that," the witness said.
Under further cross-examination, he repeatedly denied he had been in Mary Sherry's house that day. He agreed with Mr Rogers that he sometimes carried a knife the length of his index finger.
He agreed he had been in the local pub in Inverin on the night Mr Clisham's body was removed to the church. He denied he had told his cousin he was "almost sure who did it" and was "suspicious of three". Was a woman taxi-driver mistaken or lying when she said Mr Folan was in her taxi on November 26th? Mr Rogers asked. "She was telling lies," he replied.
He said he had not spoken to any garda about Mr Clisham's death until he made a statement in the station in Galway on December 7th, 1997. He could not remember Garda Pat O'Connor being at his house on December 4th.
Mr Rogers suggested he remembered it well but that it was an embarrassment to him because he had not told the garda anything that night. The witness replied that it had not happened.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kelly and a jury.